


something strange in your neighborhood

by smilebackwards



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, Fluff, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: The first time the sugar bowl scoots sixteen inches along the breakfast bar with no outside assistance, Caleb crouches down to see if the counter isn’t quite level. The second time, he puts the salt shaker beside it as a benchmark. The third time the bowl moves, the salt remaining stubbornly stationary, Caleb panics and runs across the hall to pound on the door of 23B.





	

  


The first time the sugar bowl scoots sixteen inches along the breakfast bar with no outside assistance, Caleb crouches down to see if the counter isn’t quite level. The second time, he puts the salt shaker beside it as a benchmark. The third time the bowl moves, the salt remaining stubbornly stationary, Caleb panics and runs across the hall to pound on the door of 23B. 

He’s not going to be able to sleep in a haunted apartment. The sugar bowl is one thing, but who knows what’s next? Caleb has steak knives and scissors and three different types of pliers.

The door swings slowly inward and Caleb’s eyes trace up plaid pajama pants to a grey t-shirt and finally settle on a pair of frankly stunning blue eyes. _Oh no,_ Caleb thinks. _He’s hot._

“Can I help you with something?” Hot Neighbor Guy asks.

Caleb’s brain does a quick about-face. Freaking out about your haunted sugar bowl and asking to couch surf may not make the best first impression. “Can I borrow a cup of sugar?” Caleb blurts instead.

It’s 11 o’clock at night. Caleb’s never made anything from scratch in his life. 

He’s considering that his chances of death-by-ghost are probably lower than death-by-embarrassment when Hot Neighbor Guy opens the door wide and says, “Sure, I think I have some. Do you want to come in?”

“I’m Ben by the way,” he adds as Caleb steps across the threshold. The apartment is almost a mirror image of Caleb’s aside from the lack of dozens of unpacked boxes and the ghost. There’s a coffee maker in pride of place beside the sink and a box of open Nilla wafers on the counter. 

Caleb feels an immediate kinship. “I’m Caleb. I just moved into 23A,” he says.

Ben opens a cupboard and pulls out a mostly full bag of granulated sugar. He looks at Caleb’s empty hands. 

Caleb pauses. “Can I borrow a cup too?” 

“Sure,” Ben says. He opens another cupboard stocked with glasses and takes a blue mug off the top shelf. YALE is wrapped around it in white block letters. Ben fills the mug over the sink and hands it to Caleb.

“Thanks,” Caleb says, staring down at the sifting white crystals. He could leave now and this would be only a mildly embarrassing episode. He could dump the sugar down the drain and return the washed cup in the morning, say something smooth like, ‘Can I repay you with a cup of coffee sometime?’

Caleb sighs and puts the mug down on the counter. “Look, Ben, level with me. Was someone murdered in my apartment?”

Ben’s face cycles through several different emotions: shock, confusion, wariness, sadness. Caleb isn’t sure what the appropriate expression would be for a neighbor being murdered but he just feels like it would be different.

“No,” Ben says slowly. “Mrs. Patterson was eighty nine. She passed away in her sleep.”

“Did she like sugar?” Caleb presses, as if Ben kept track of his eighty nine-year-old neighbor’s sugar consumption.

“Yes,” Ben says, because apparently he did. “I used to help her with her groceries and she’d make us tea. She took hers with three sugars.”

“I didn’t really come here for sugar,” Caleb admits. “I don’t need more sugar. I have too much sugar.”

Ben looks like he might be gearing up to rush Caleb and shove him out the door. Caleb thinks he could probably do it. He has nice arms.

“My sugar bowl in haunted,” Caleb says hurriedly, planting his feet. “I’m not making this up. It moved on it’s own three separate times. And not like a few centimeters that could be explained by an earthquake or a tremor. Sixteen inches. I measured it, Ben. I did science. I put a salt shaker beside it as a control and the salt never moved.” Ben’s shoulders start to slowly relax as Caleb rambles on. Caleb doesn’t think he’s actually sounding any less like a crazy person, but he’ll take the win. “I mean, Mrs. Patterson wouldn’t have some kind of grudge against me for moving in..?”

Ben smiles, a little mocking, but mostly just amused. “Well, I never crossed her myself but I doubt she’d hold it against you.” His blue eyes are warm. “Still, you never know, it might be best to give her some time to adjust. Do you want to stay here tonight?”

“Yes!” Caleb says. He clears his throat and repeats, with more chill, “Yes. Thank you. The couch would be great.”

Ben rubs the back of his head embarrassedly. He nods toward the living room. “Actually, I don’t have a couch.”

Caleb’s eyes follow Ben’s movement. Sure enough, there’s a sturdy wooden desk, overflowing with papers and colored pens, against the wall where Caleb is planning to put a couch in his own apartment. A single, upright armchair is alongside it, facing a television. Caleb could probably fall asleep in the chair, but his back wouldn’t thank him. 

“I don’t do a lot of entertaining,” Ben explains.

“The floor’s fine,” Caleb says, trying to ignore the way his heart skips at the implication that Ben isn’t seeing anyone. “Do you have an extra pillow?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can have the bed.”

Caleb stares at him. “I can’t take your bed.” He’s not some honored and invited guest. He’s literally here because he’s convinced his sugar bowl is haunted by an octogenarian.

“I can’t let you sleep on the floor,” Ben returns, stubbornly.

They’re at an impasse as Ben leads Caleb through to the bedroom. A framed black and white photo of the ocean is hanging above the bed and there’s a tiny nightstand with a lamp and a precarious pyramid of books stacked on top. Ben’s bed is a California king with a deep blue comforter tucked under the mattress corners with military precision. It takes up almost the whole room and entirely makes up for his lack of couch. “We could just share,” Caleb says.

Ben doesn’t say anything for a moment. Caleb wants to slap a hand over his own mouth. He doesn’t think he’s had a single good idea tonight and Caleb usually has great ideas. He wonders suddenly if that’s just because he’s always compared himself against Abe.

“Okay,” Ben says, his voice a little stilted.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb says. “That was a stupid idea. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Ben’s eyes are steady when he looks at Caleb. “No— No, it’s fine.” There’s a hint of a flush picking up in his cheeks. 

Caleb grins at him, giddy. Maybe he’s in with a chance after all. “Okay. Did you— Are you ready to go to sleep?”

“Yeah,” Ben says. He goes out and flips off the lights in the kitchen and offers Caleb a glob of spearmint toothpaste so he can brush his teeth with his finger while Ben washes his face over the sink. It feels oddly synchronized, easy.

Ben folds back the covers on his bed and slides in on the left. Caleb always sleeps on the right. _You’re perfect,_ he thinks, watching Ben get settled, the way the gold fall of his hair contrasts against the pillowcase. 

Caleb climbs in on the right before Ben can catch him staring. There’s a comfortable two or three feet between them but Caleb thinks he can feel the faint heat of Ben’s body, a ghostly impression he has no issue with. “Goodnight, Ben.”

“Goodnight, Caleb,” Ben says, and clicks off the light.

-

Caleb wakes up with sunlight in his eyes. 

Ben is still asleep. His face is pressed against the pillow in a way Caleb expects will leave creases on his cheek. Caleb shifts his weight carefully, easing himself off the bed inch by inch to avoid waking Ben, and pads out of the bedroom.

Caleb doesn’t think there’s a traditional ‘thanks for letting me sleep over because I was afraid of the ghost in my apartment’ but he figures you can’t go wrong with breakfast. 

Ben let Caleb sleep in his bed so Caleb doubts rummaging through his kitchen is going to be that step too far. Ben has all the ingredients for quick French toast and Caleb mixes them together as quietly as possible before dipping the bread and putting it on a frying pan to brown up.

While he’s waiting, the Yale mug full of sugar, left abandoned on the counter from last night, slides across the granite into Caleb’s hand. “Thanks,” he says. The air smells like faded cotton and lavender. Caleb thinks his apartment is probably safe. 

He doesn’t want to go back quite yet.

Caleb is laying out the table when he hears the soft sounds of Ben waking up, the rustle of sheets and the creak of bed springs. 

Ben’s jaw stretches with a yawn as he comes out of the bedroom. His hair is tousled with sleep and when he sees breakfast on the table he smiles, sweeter than any sugar. “Did you make French toast?”

He has the sleep creases Caleb anticipated on his cheek. Caleb would like to make him French toast every day for the rest of their lives. “Yeah,” Caleb says, smiling back. “Sugar’s on the table.”

  



End file.
